Holly Hill market gets 'civic center' tag after contentious debate

ANDREW GANT, Staff Writer

Wednesday

Nov 23, 2011 at 12:01 AMAug 15, 2012 at 1:32 PM

HOLLY HILL -- The city's outdoor market on 2nd Street officially became a civic center Tuesday night, a step that gives the city the right to buy a state liquor license and sell alcohol to guests at its newest event venue.

Despite that, Manny Bornia's plan for an every-Friday-evening marketplace there faces an uncertain future - with Bornia himself saying he isn't sure he wants to move forward with it.

"What do we have to gain from it?" a frustrated Bornia said after the City Commission's meeting Tuesday night, which reached its most contentious moment when one commissioner expressed regret about voting for Bornia's contract in the first place.

The issue on the table was a resolution to call The Market - the city property undergoing publicly funded renovations - a "civic center," which would allow the city to pay $1,900 a year for a special liquor license. Those alcohol sales, city Economic Development Director Lynn Dehlinger said, will help Holly Hill book weddings and other special events at the courtyard or in the surrounding indoor wings.

The resolution passed 4-1, with Commissioner Liz Towsley-Patton casting the lone "no" vote - and adding that she wishes she'd voted "no" on the market contract with Bornia's Vanguard Omnimedia two weeks earlier. (She reluctantly voted yes, while expressing some concerns about how the contract appeared rushed.)

"You've seen what happened with this contract from the very beginning - everything is done before it's done," Towsley-Patton said. "I think this is an underhanded, back-door way of getting a liquor license."

That angered Commissioner Donnie Moore, who interrupted to say: "Did you vote for the contract?"

"Yes," Towsley-Patton barked back. "And I just said I'm sorry I did."

The contract with Vanguard to run the market is a two-year agreement, with Vanguard getting 75 percent of the gross profits from sales of alcohol. The city would get the remaining quarter.

City Manager Jim McCroskey said Vanguard offered to give the city $1,000 for its first event - technically, sharing profits was not possible under the nonprofit alcohol license Vanguard has been using until the city gets its own.

Several residents stood up to oppose the prospect of a liquor license, including Carol Ireland, who runs the Townline Lounge across the street from The Market.

"I am upset about this business going on across the street," Ireland said. "It is disrupting my business."

"You don't need alcohol at a farmer's market," said Lloyd Flanagan, who runs a market in Barberville on Saturdays. "... My farmers market's free. I'm just saying, you don't need what you've got yourself into with these folks. We'll just leave it like that."

"I'll be (darned) if I'm going to go buy a bag of potatoes and sit down and have a martini," said another resident. "You guys should look around."

Resident Polly Cappuccio, though, said she was happy with the market -- she mingled with neighbors there, bought produce and had a glass of wine -- and she asked the crowd at the meeting: "I don't get why no one wants to be happy. Really. Why don't you want to be happy?"

Towsley-Patton was less impressed with the market's debut last Friday. "What I saw last week was only five vendors when we were promised 30," she said.

Bornia's partner in the project is real-estate investor Ramara Garrett, and until recently, the venture also included Volusia County Councilman Josh Wagner. Wagner, however, recently took a buyout from Vanguard and is no longer invested in it or Bornia's magazine, Floridian View - which is eventually expected to move its office into The Market property.

Toward the end of the meeting, Commissioner John Penny suggested holding off on any more market events until the new year - and "wait for this thing to come out of the box like a rocket."

"I truly don't believe there's been any attempt to do any funny business," Penny said. "I just think it's a lesson we need to learn. If you were my kids, I'd say let's all take a time out."

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